


erosion

by a_gay_poster



Category: Naruto
Genre: Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-21 08:42:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18139973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_gay_poster/pseuds/a_gay_poster
Summary: Prompt: "it wasn't your fault."Gaara often woke in the night to the rough edges of old hurts surfacing within him, compelled to make amends to someone who couldn’t hear them.





	erosion

Gaara blinked awake in the pre-dawn darkness of his bedroom. Lee lay in front of him, his bare back and shoulder a silvery expanse of skin and shadow. Gaara stared down the curve of Lee’s bicep, the peaks and valleys of old wounds, scar tissue cast in sharp relief over the muscle. 

Gaara’s fingers lingered over a crevasse of wrinkled skin at the juncture of Lee’s elbow. Gaara leaned down and pressed a kiss to the scar. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. 

This pattern, this penance, was nothing new. Gaara often woke in the night to the rough edges of old hurts surfacing within him, compelled to make amends to someone who couldn’t hear them. He chipped away at his guilt, bit by bit, then buried it, like stones dropping silent into a still pool. 

He kissed the long mark down the back of Lee’s arm, where a bone had once broken skin.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered again. 

He laid kiss after gentle kiss down the exposed length of Lee’s arm, lingering over the places where Lee had been shattered by Gaara’s own brittleness. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” a prayer, a mantra, a shovel dug into the dirt and colliding with only stone. 

“It wasn’t your fault,” Lee said to the cool air, his voice as placid as water underground. “You have nothing to apologize for.”

Gaara stilled behind him. One arm snaked around Lee’s taut middle, Gaara’s chin nestled its way onto Lee’s broad shoulder.

“I attempted to kill you, because I was angry and in pain,” Gaara’s voice came harshly from his throat, abraded with sleep and his own sharpness. “In what way is that not my fault?”

Lee scooted backwards until Gaara was fully pressed against his back. Gaara’s heartbeat trembled jaggedly against his spine. Lee pulled Gaara’s arm closer and cupped his hand over his own heart in turn, the beat steady as a current.

“I would have killed you, too, if it had meant winning,” Lee said slowly. “I got a couple pretty good kicks in on you, actually. I’m surprised I didn’t break a few of your ribs.”

Gaara pressed his palm flat to Lee’s chest, letting Lee interlace their fingers. The first strains of blue light peeked over the horizon, their room awash with underwater hues. Gaara huffed a breath that ruffled Lee’s hair, sinking into the comfort of him. 

“You did,” Gaara said. “And my ileum, and my mandible. Tore my orbicularis oculi and lacerated my spleen, too.”

Lee hissed through his teeth, the sibillance of a stream among the reeds. “Ouch,” he said. “I am sorry for that.”

“Now who’s apologizing for things that aren’t their fault,” Gaara teased.

Lee chuckled, a waterfall rumbling through his chest and back into Gaara’s own. He rolled over until he was facing Gaara, slotting his legs between and over Gaara’s knobby knees. He gathered Gaara up in his arms, pressed his lips gently to the scar on Gaara’s forehead. 

“Then, it seems we’re even,” Lee said. 

Gaara chafed at this - at the immense strength and dignity and forgiveness being offered to him so casually, as if it were nothing. He bared his teeth against Lee’s shoulder. 

“We’re not,” he muttered. “Because I was a monster with a demon’s chakra healing me, and you were a child who had to undergo months of treatment and surgeries, and who almost lost his life and his dream.”

“Gaara, you were a child, too," Lee babbled. "You were twelve years old and traumatized. You had never known love, only pain and fear. How could you have known the future?”

“I understood the consequences of my actions,” Gaara said abrasively. “I chose to hurt you because I wanted to give my life the purpose that only another person’s pain could bring. I wanted to leave an indelible mark on your life.” His hand clenched into a fist, the edge of his nails digging into the meat of his palm.

“And I chose to hurt you because I wanted to move up a rank,” Lee said softly. “Without knowing you would heal at all. So which one of us was really a monster?”

“You’re not a monster,” Gaara grumbled into Lee’s chest. 

“Neither are you,” Lee said, brushing Gaara’s hair back from his forehead, the touch of his fingers light and cool. “You were a hurt, scared little boy. You’re so strong now, but sometimes I still see that hurt, scared boy inside you.” 

This is what Lee did to him, Gaara thought. Took all the rough edges of him, and Lee wore away at them - slowly, patiently - like a stream over stones. 

“It’s not natural, for you to forgive me so easily,” Gaara said. 

Lee pulled his face up, his thumb stroking along the muscle under Gaara’s eye - the one he had once sheared open with a kick. 

“It’s probably not natural to fall for the person who broke all your ribs, either,” Lee said, his smile gentle in the watery light. “But I’m glad you did.”

Gaara leaned up and kissed him, and felt cool running water tumbling over the ragged edges of his soul.


End file.
